The present invention relates to a fruit and vegetable juice extractor, and more particularly to a fruit and vegetable juice extractor into which a whole piece of fruit or vegetable may be fed to produce juice, so that cutting of the fruit or vegetable into small pieces before feeding is saved and the juice extractor is more effective and practical for use.
Generally, a fruit and vegetable juice extractor includes, among other parts, a disc cutter rotatable at high speed, and a feed tube via which fruit or vegetable is fed to and ground by the disc cutter to produce juice. The disc cutter for the above-described conventional fruit and vegetable juice extractor has a dead angle of grinding at a central area thereof due to the arrangement of cutter blades thereof. To avoid the central dead angle of grinding, the feed tube is normally located at an eccentric position on the juice extractor. For this reason, the feed tube is limited to a bore that could not be too large. Due to the limited bore of the feed tube, fruit and vegetable to fed into the juice extractor are preferably cut into small pieces before being fed into the feed tube. This will, of course, bring inconveniences to a user. In the event the feed tube is expanded to have an increased bore for receiving a whole piece of fruit or vegetable, the eccentric position of the feed tube necessitates an increased volume of the whole juice extractor to result in increased manufacturing cost and inconvenient storage of the juice extractor.
A primary object of the present invention is to provide an improved fruit and vegetable juice extractor into which a whole piece of fruit or vegetable may be fed for grinding and juicing to save the trouble of cutting the fruit or vegetable into small pieces.
To achieve the above object, the present invention includes a disc cutter that is provided at a central area with curved blades arranged into a form of a cross, and one of the curved blades has an end extended across a center of the disc cutter to eliminate the central dead angle of grinding on the disc cutter. With the central dead angle of grinding removed from the disc cutter, it is possible for the feed tube to align with the center of the disc cutter and has a bore twice as large as that of the conventional feed tube without increasing the total volume of the juice extractor. And, the expanded bore of the feed tube allows feeding of whole pieces of fruit or vegetable into the feed tuber
Another object of the present invention is to provide an improved fruit and vegetable juice extractor that includes a hollow cylindrical feed tube, one side of which is chamfered to prevent whole pieces of fruit or vegetable fed thereinto from rotating along with the disc cutter while the latter rotates at high speed, so that the fed fruit or vegetable is fully ground to produce as much juice as possible.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an improved fruit and vegetable juice extractor that includes a plunger for pushing fruit or vegetable into a feed tube for grinding, and the plunger is provided at a bottom end surface with two intersected rows of teeth. These teeth firmly grip the fruit or vegetable fed into the feed tube and thereby prevent the fruit or vegetable in the feed tube from vibrating to facilitate smooth feeding of fruit or vegetable.